I didn't watch the Oscars last night. The time difference between the UK and LA is brutal, and a scroll through my Twitter feed this morning, along with links to things such as "9 Sexist Things That Happened at the Oscars" and general disgust over Seth McFarlane as presenter, quickly convinced me not to both watching this morning.
It seems to me that the women are there to model the fashions (and be praised or torn apart for their efforts) and the men are there to represent the serious side of the industry and win the serious awards. And that's reflected in everything about the awards, from the "jokes" made by the presenter, to the intense criticism of everything that female stars do (overwhelmed Anne Hathaway is too enthusiastic, while walking-in-crutches Kristin Stewart is not enthusiastic enough), to the nominee lists themselves.

Because, to be frank, it's lucky that there are separate categories for "best actress" and "best supporting actress." Otherwise, it hardly seems like women would appear on the list at all.

Here's the list of all the Oscar nominees, in categories where individuals are nominated, and the award isn't gender-exclusive. All female nominees are in bold.

Skyfall (Skyfall) - Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
Before My Time (Chasing Ice) - Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
Everybody Needs A Best Friend (Ted) - Music by Walter Murphy, Lyric by Seth MacFarlane
Pi's lullaby (Life Of Pi) - Music by Mychael Danna, Lyric by Bombay Jayashri
Suddenly (Les Miserables) - Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

So, in the more prestigious awards, like best director, best screenplay and best cinematography, there's only 1 female nominee, out of 21 total. The only category where women outnumber men is in costume design, and the only category where the two come close to equal is production design. For the majority of categories, not a single woman is even nominated, not even when each nominated film involves teams of two or three.

And now I'm left wondering... is this a problem with the Oscars, where a team of almost exclusively old white men pick the winners, or a problem with the film industry, where women don't even get a chance at behind-the-scenes work on major films, unless it's in the costume department? I knew that female directors were pretty rare, but female anything? Or is it, as I suspect, a kind of self-feeding system, where mostly men get work on major films, so mostly men get recognition at awards like the Oscars, leading to more work, and so more recognition... those who are recognized with awards get work, and those who get work get recognized, and on and on. And meanwhile, no one pays attention to the talented women in the business, so without that recognition, they aren't able to progress.

If Wikipedia is accurate, only 4 women have ever been nominated for best director, and only one woman has ever won. It's enough to make me want there to be separate categories -- best male director, best female director -- like there are for performers, except that too is incredibly uncomfortable, as everyone knows that the "female director" one will be considered a lesser award, a pity award, and potentially only exacerbate the problem.

But how can this cycle of men-get-important-roles, men-win-the-awards be broken? I honestly have no clue.